Trying to visualize this data.....

I have spent weeks looking at this information. I have been trying to figure out how to spell it out in my blog and not present it in an information overload manner. I wanted it to be visual but not over whelming. It is not easy to digest it all. In my family tree software by Family Tree Maker you can only see three generations at one time so it is hard to visualize what it looks like. I am not sure that I will be able to put this in the blog and have this same image due to formatting issues that I have noticed but we will try.

I received the information from Inger who got it from her friend, Lars in Tjome. Lars is credited with doing the research to obtain this data. There are seven new generations from Olava Hansdatter family listed… It is such a spectacular gift! This represents years of reading through hand written church records. One of the things that it tells us is that for 8 generations in this family they all were born, baptized, confirmed, married, died and were buried in or very near Tjome, and Notteroy, Norway.

In my fifteen years of family history research, I have had three other occasions when I discovered that some other researcher had spent a great deal of time researching families that I was related to. It is always such a surprise to stumble on a treasure trove of data that fits into your tree. This is by far the largest single amount of data that I have received at one time. This part of our tree now spans 10 generations stopping at Mom and 12 generations if we go back to the current generation of grandchildren.

Let me put it this way… The DNA test that Matt and I did on our Smith line of the family, identifies 5 highly probable matches 10 generations back. (none of them are Smiths!) The information from Lars takes us 12 generations back.

 Anderson/Andersen Family Tree

 # 1. Leah Anderson

 #2 Andrew and Addie Anderson - my Grandparents

#3. Ingeborg and Hans Andersen - Andrew's Parents



 

#4 Both sets of Andrew's Grandparents

#5 Andrew’s Great Grandparents

 and so on…through generation #10.

1. Leah Anderson Smith (1928-2009)

    2. => Andrew Anderson (1883-1970)
    2. => Addie Densmore (1890-1955)

          3. => Hans Andersen (1859-1946)
          3. => Ingeborg Helene Jakobsdatter (1856-1894)

                 4. => Anders Hansen (1822-?) - Hans Parents
                 4. => Olava Hansdatter (1828-1911)             
                 4. => Jakob Carlsen (1819 – 1879) - Ingeborg's Parents
                 4. => Helvig Marie Christensdatter (1821-1883)

                          5. => Hans Paulsen - Ander's Parents
                          5. => Not known
                          5. => Hans Nielsen (1787-1852) - Olava's Parents
                          5. => Kristen Hansdatter (1790-1836)
               
                          5. => Carl Jakobsen - Jakob's Parents
                          5. => Anna Marie Olsdatter
                          5. => Christen Christophersen (1796-?) Helvig's Parents
                          5. => Edel Hansdatter( 1797 - ?)

                          6. => Kristi Thorsdatter (1759-1820)- (5) Kristen's Parents
                          6. => Hans Jonsen (1758-1804)

                          7. => Thors Olsen (1730-1799) Kristi's Parents
                          7. => Pernille Andersdatter

                          8. => Ole Sorensen (died 1750) (7)Thors' Parents
                          8. => Kristi Thorsdatter (1695-1758)

                          9. => Soeren Olsen (1635- 1717 (8) Ole's Parents
                          9. => Else (1630-1724
                          9. => Thors Admunsen (1658-1708) (8)Kristi's Parents
                          9. => Marthe Olsdatter (died 1727)
 
                         10. => Ole Soerensen (?-1645) Soeren' Parents
                         10. => Eli (?-1660)
                         10. => Anund Olsen (1613-1697 Thor's Father
                         10. => Ole Evensen (1620-1680)  Mathe's Parents
                         10. => Kristi Gunderdatters (1630-1693

So did you get all that! 
Happy hunting! 
Jan

PS...Had to do some editingon a format which got messed up..



Meet the McGoogans....

I’ve had my corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots and now I am feeling really Irish! So it is time for me to share with you some of my Irish roots. At this time I still can not determine when the first McGoogan arrived but I keep working on it!  Happy St Patricks Day and may the luck of the Irish be with you all today!

Robert McGoogan was born in Pennsylvania in 1760. He and his wife are listed in the 1790 census in Unity, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The family consisted of 8 persons but I have only been able to positively identify four of the names of the children who would have been listed in the 1790 Census. The parents were Robert and his wife Margaret and three sons have been identified. They are part of the children listed in the 1790 census.  They are Robert, Samuel and James McGoogan.

Note the fourth line from the bottom - it's our Robert in the 1790 Census for Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.

We are descendants of Robert who was born in 1784. He married Elizabeth in 1803 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. They had eleven children, three were born in Pennsylvania and the remaining children were born in Richland County, Ohio. The children are; Jane(1804), Rachel(1808), Sarah(1811), Elizabeth(1815), Clementine(1815), Robert (1820), John (1822), William (1823) Angeline(1825), Joshua (1827), Mary Ann (1832).

William who was born in 1823in Ohio.  He married Hannah Robart (1832) in Ohio before settling in Allen County, Indiana bef ore 1856 when their first daughter was born.   Thier children are Amanda(1856), Mary L. (b.1856, d. 1861) , George B.(1863), Arabella(1863) and Elizabeth(1873).

 

 

Amanda shown in the photo above, married John Crites in 1873. She and John are our GGGrandparents on the Smith side of the family.  I have talked about them in early blogs in the archives. They were my one of early success stories which tugged at my heart and fueled my passion for family history. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Irish Blessings to you all!

Love Jan

A birthday greeting from Grandma in 1908….

One hundred and two years and a few months ago, a 25 year old man received a postcard from his Grandmother in Norway. The fact that his grandmother loved him enough to send a birthday greeting to him in America is not so surprising. I have two Grandsons and a Granddaughter who live in different states so I know how that love feels. I know how I miss them and they are not an ocean away from me.

The twenty five year old man obviously loved his Grandmother or why would he have kept this post card all his life. The postcard is from Grimestad. It is just a simple picture of some houses along the coast of the Oslo Fjord. The postcard was found by my mother when she was going through her father’s belongings after he died. It was carefully stored in a drawer with other family documents. There were other picture postcard, letters from family members, his wife burial card and some photos, prized possessions which documented a man and his life. She had remembered seeing the postcard before when she was a child but she did not know that he had kept it. She decided that it was an important family document worth keeping. It is the postcard that I showed you in the previous blog but I think I will include it again.

 

 
A few weeks ago, this postcard and several others that we have saved all these years went on a journey back across the ocean to Norway. They were sent back to the area Of the world which they originated from, back to Grimestad,Tjome. This time they did not get post marked nor did they get physically sent like they did in 1908. This time they were digitally sent. The magic of the internet, a simple message and the selection of the SEND button and seconds later it is sent in an email to a generic email address to the Tjome Historical Society. I thought that they would love to receive this post card and several others that we had kept all these years. I thought I would be able to help them preserve the story of my Grandfather’s homeland. Little did I know what this small act would do for me!
 
This email would create a ripple of events which would enable me to meet a distant cousin. My cousin, Inger, would then begin to unravel the story which is my Andersen family in Norway. It was a photo of a similar post card of the home that was Olava Jorgansen which Inger posted in a Norwegian archive was the clue I need to realize that Olava was indeed my GGGrandmother and that this post card was sent to Anders by this Grandmother. In a future blog, I will talk about the mountain of information that I have received about Olava and her (our) family!

In the days which followed, I sent more photos and post cards to Inger and she has translated them for me. Today I will share a few of these Photos with you.

This is a photo on my Great Grandfather Hans fishing presumable along the Oslo Fjord near Tjome.
 
 
 

This is a Christmas Card sent to Anders (Andrew)  from his father.  The photo is of Hans and his second wife, Mathilde Zainer.  Inger is related to me through Mathilde’s brother.  It was December 09, 1909 when Andrew married Addie Densmore in Marine City, Michigan and would decide to make America his permanent home.

Wedding Photo of Andrew (Anders Andersen) Anderson and Addie Denmore. They were married in Windsor, Ontario,Canada. 

I hope that you will stay tuned as this story unfolds!

Love, Jan

A letter from a Granddaughter to her Grandpa...

Dear Grandpa Anderson,

I have thought of you a lot since you have been gone.  I can remember the smell of your pipe and the taste of the gum that you gave us every afternoon. I can hear you telling us where to put our used gum when we were done. "Put it in the waste basket not on the ground or your Mom won't let me give it to you anymore!", you would say. I remember the way you let us crawl all over you while you sat on the front porch.  You alway had room on your lap for us and a hug to share!

I remember that you gave me a dress for my birthday every year.  My favorite was the one you gave me when I was 5 years old.  It was my favorite dress in  Kindergarten. I wish I had that dress today but I think I wore it out because I wanted to wear it everyday! You also gave me a plastic pin in the shape of a pony, a red pony. I wore it alot too.

I must say that I have thought of you so much more in the last few weeks. I can not really know why I picked this very moment to begin looking at our Norwegian Family again. Maybe it was because of our visit last fall to Norway and Denmark and our continued communication with Bjarne. Or maybe it was my frustration with my Smith research road block.  

The letters, post cards and photos that you saved for us all those years are priceless! They spoke loud and clear to me when the time was right! They told me where to begin to look but they could not prepare me for what I would find! Thank you for leaving me these clues. These clues help me to find a new friend and family member in Norway. Her name is Inger Zainer and she is helping me to uncover long hidden information about you, your brothers, Haakon and Hagbart, your father Hans, your mother, Ingeborg and Grandmother, Olava.

It all started with the message posted on rootsweb.com about you,  Tjome, Norway and your old post cards.  One of your post cards was a birthday greeting from your Grandmother, Olava.  It was through Inger and your Father's birth record which helped me to realize that Olava was your Grandmother and my GGGrandmother.   When I saw her name on the birth record, I knew I had seen it before on a postcard.

Through a friend of Ingers, Lars, we now know who the members of Olava’s family were for 7 generation to early 1600. 

They all lived in or near Tjome except the earliest two generation which came from nearby Notteroy. This information represents years of research by Lars. I can not thank him enough for all this information.

Grandpa, I want you to know I miss you but most of all that I love you! I will preserve your memory and tell our Family story so future generations will know that we too come from Tjome!

Love, Jan